There was a family in this house before us.  A young family, a lot like us.  The mother is an artist and clearly came at decorating from that perspective.  There is a lot of vivid color here.  It’s amazing how all the shades works off of each other when you look from one room to the next.  I refer to the 2nd floor as the “starburst” color scheme because it is exactly all the colors of starburst candies (tell me I’m wrong).

I’ve had the pleasure of seeing some photos of the place, while they were living in it, and it was really neat; fresh and modern.  You could tell there was a lot of joy in this house.  And as much as I can appreciate that look, the fact is, when it comes down to it, I’m not modern, at least my decorating sense (if we can call it that) isn’t.   I have been called fresh before, but I don’t think it was meant in quite the same way.

You all know I was born with the disposition of a little old woman, right?  It’s actually slightly concerning, I mean what exactly do I have to look forward too in my old age?  Sitting in a rocking chair, wrapped in a shawl, with a cup of tea and maybe a hot water  bottle, knitting?  uhm, hell-o, typical Friday night!  I’ve even got the little part down pat.  Maybe I’ll go backwards and get all funky and be out partying in my 80′s.  Only I think I’d miss my tea and knitting.

I can remember being around 9 years old and shopping for curtains with my mother and grandmother.  My mother found these peach colored balloon valences, the kind that you stuff with scrunched up newspapers to make them all puffy.  They were very popular with young girls at the time.  I wanted the rose colored jabot valences with Venetian lace trim.  My mother pointed out that they would clash with the carpet, which was true enough, as the shag carpets in our rental home were all the most lurid colors of puke, oranges, red and chartreuse mainly.  I countered that argument by switching to the ivory ones of the same style.  And when I continued to be insistent on them, my well meaning grandmother told me told me that I didn’t want them because they were “old lady curtains”.  It’s probably pretty bad when your grandmother is telling you your tastes are too old-fashioned!

I’m drawn to soft, muted hues, delicate touches of color with a lot of neutrals mixed in.  Soothing colors.  The way I see it, we come with plenty of chaos and energy, we don’t need to inspire more.  And while I can certainly admire bold and bright, these aren’t the colors that we would choose to live with.  I think that something like my last five knitting projects have all been in shades of grey, with more to come.  That’s probably pretty telling.

And so to work we go.  Forty-eight hours and just under 4 gallons of primer later and the fuchsia and bubble gum pink of the master bedroom have been reduced to a pale petal pink.  It’s the palest of sky blues for the green clover room and the orange room is, well less orange anyway.

And now for some color!

(But, you know, just a little bit.)